March 7, 2017

Celebration and Resistance

January 13, 2017

NAPW says Knocked Up, Fight Back!

It has never been easy to give the "elevator" speech for National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW). Our commitment and vision are rooted in the broad principles and values of reproductive justice and human rights. Our work, making use of our particular knowledge, expertise and skills, focuses on pregnant women - especially those most likely to be targeted for punishment and control.

While NAPW does more than legal advocacy, one way to simplify and sum up NAPW's work is to say: If you are locked up because you are knocked up - call NAPW.

One of the women who was locked up is Anna Yocca. On December 8, 2015 she was indicted for attempted first-degree murder based on the claim that she had used a coat hanger in an attempt to terminate her approximately 24-week pregnancy. After seeking help at a local hospital, she voluntarily underwent cesarean surgery and gave birth to a premature baby who has since been adopted. Ms. Yocca was arrested and bond was set at $200,000. She was incarcerated for more than a year in the Rutherford County Adult Detention Center without a trial or conviction. NAPW provided assistance to her criminal defense counsel.

On Monday, Ms. Yocca pleaded guilty to a lesser offense - attempted procurement of a miscarriage - to win immediate release from incarceration. As NAPW explained in our joint press release with Healthy and Free Tennessee, this plea deal should not be understood as validation of arresting and punishing pregnant women who have or try to have abortions but rather a frightening example of how the criminal law system can be used to bully and punish pregnant women and mothers - with or without a conviction or valid law. Because of our efforts, coverage of the plea, including stories in The New York Times, NBC News and the Herald Chronicle, highlighted the injustice and danger of using the criminal law system to police and punish pregnant women.

In addition to NAPW's work on individual cases we also work on the big picture. For example, we join efforts to save the healthcare we have. NAPW exposes the fact that attacks on abortion are attacks on mothers and all pregnant women including those who want to go to term. And, NAPW broadens the base of social justice activists through our public education and organizing efforts including the upcoming Take Root: Red State Perspectives on Reproductive Justice Conference. (Please join us in Norman, Oklahoma February 24-25, 2017).

Given the existing and increasing attacks on all of us, including pregnant women, and inspired by ACT UP, an organization instrumental in fighting the AIDS pandemic and improving the lives of people living with HIV/AIDS, NAPW believes it is time to say:

Knocked Up, Fight Back!

What does this mean? "Knocked Up" means to be pregnant. "Fight Back!" means working together to ensure that no one is stigmatized, shamed, punished, or denied health care or constitutional and human rights because they have the capacity for pregnancy, are pregnant, or because of the outcome of their pregnancies.

Please join NAPW at the Women's March on Washington on Saturday, January 21st, 2017. We have chartered a bus for the trip. If you want to be on the NAPW bus please send an email to csd@advocatesforpregnantwomen.org with "I want to march" in the subject box to find out if seats are still available.

Her case dates back to December 8, 2015, when Tennessee prosecutors indicted Ms. Yocca for attempted first degree murder based on the claim that she had used a coat hanger in an attempt to terminate her approximately 24 week pregnancy. After seeking help at a local hospital she voluntarily underwent cesarean surgery and gave birth to a premature baby who has since been adopted.

Ms. Yocca was arrested and was unable to pay the bond for her release, which was set at $200,000. She had been incarcerated in the Rutherford County Adult Detention Center for more than a year without a trial or conviction.

In February 2016, Ms. Yocca's defense attorney Gerald Melton succeeded in getting the murder charge dismissed. She was re-indicted for aggravated fetal assault under a 2014 law that explicitly permitted arrests of pregnant women. According to that law's supporters, only women who illegally used opioids and gave birth to babies who experienced neonatal abstinence syndrome would be subject to arrest. Nevertheless, prosecutors charged Ms. Yocca, despite no allegations of illegal use of opioids.

As a result of opposition to the 2014 law and evidence that it was ineffective in addressing health issues relating to pregnant women and opioid use, the law went out of effect in July of 2016.

In December 2016, facing a motion to dismiss and strong legal arguments against her arrest, prosecutors charged Ms. Yocca with three new felonies including aggravated assault with a weapon, as well as two laws originally adopted in the late 1800's: attempted criminal abortion and attempted procurement of a miscarriage. Both of these charges are currently part of Tennessee's criminal abortion code.

Lynn Paltrow, Executive Director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW), said "Today, after more than a year in jail, in order to win immediate release Ms. Yocca pleaded guilty to attempted procurement of a miscarriage despite the fact that it is unconstitutional and a violation of international human rights principles to use this vague statute to punish women and new mothers for their pregnancies and the outcomes of those pregnancies."

Paltrow explained, "This plea deal should not be understood as validation of arresting and punishing pregnant women who have or try to have abortions but rather a frightening example of how the criminal law system can be used to bully and punish pregnant women and mothers - with or without a conviction or valid law."

Nancy Rosenbloom, NAPW's Director of Legal Advocacy, warned "at a time when much of the country is taking more seriously the need for criminal justice reform, the prosecution of Anna Yocca indicates a larger trend in the punishment and incarceration of women in Tennessee. Using the state's abortion laws to punish pregnant women will increase the state's already record high prison population in which women make up the fastest growing part."

Broad opposition to prosecution and punishment of women

The arrest and prosecution, and now a plea occurred despite the fact that organizations that seek to overturn Roe v. Wade consistently claim that the laws criminalizing abortion will not be used to prosecute and punish the women who have them. In the aftermath of President elect Trump's campaign statement that "there has to be some form of punishment" for the women who have abortions, anti abortion groups including March for Life, National Right to Life Committee, and the Susan B. Anthony List specifically spoke out against penalties for the women themselves. None of these groups, however, have opposed the prosecution of Ms. Yocca.

Incarcerated in a decertified jail where Sheriff was arrested for personal profiteering

Also during Ms. Yocca's incarceration, Sheriff Robert Arnold, who oversees this facility, was indicted by a grand jury on charges including bribery, fraud and conspiracy for personally and illegal profiting from incarcerated people through the sale of JailCigs, an electronic cigarettes business owned by the Sheriff's uncle and a former next door neighbor. Although originally free on bond, a judge revoked Arnold's bond when he was accused of assaulting his wife.

Making Abortion Illegal or Inaccessible Won't Stop Abortions - Including Safe Home Abortions

While the specific circumstances of Ms. Yocca's case are not known, what is known from experience around the world and in the United States before and after the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, is that nothing will stop women from ending a pregnancy when they feel it is wrong for them and their families. It was estimated that before Roe, 1-1.2 million women in the U.S. were having abortions each year despite laws making it a crime.

Francine Coeytaux, principal investigator at Public Health Institute, said "Today, we live in an era where safe home abortion is possible. With the medication Misoprostol alone or in combination with Mifepristone, women around the world have learned how to have safe abortions outside of medical settings, and protected from the possibility of arrest." In the U.S. states, including Tennessee have enacted specific restrictions on telemedicine laws to make such abortions, even with medical supervision, illegal or virtually impossible to obtain.

This is just one of many restrictive abortion laws in Tennessee. Allison Glass, State Director of Healthy and Free Tennessee explained, "96 percent of Tennessee counties-where a majority of the state's women live-have no abortion providers. Women in Tennessee must get state-prescribed, in-person counseling from the abortion provider, wait 48 hours, then come back for the procedure." Ms. Glass also noted that in 2014, a ballot measure passed establishing that the Tennessee State Constitution could not be interpreted to provide any protection for women who have abortions. "Tennessee lawmakers have made Tennessee an incredibly hostile state, both through legislation and in creating a highly stigmatized climate, where one's ability to secure safe and legal abortion is extremely difficult and sometimes impossible," Ms. Glass said.

Nancy Rosenbloom of NAPW explained, however, that the one federal court decision to specifically address the question of punishment of women who have abortions ruled that such punishment is unconstitutional. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of McCormack v. Herzog struck down several parts of Idaho's abortion laws in a case that grew out of Idaho's decision to charge a woman who had safely terminated a pregnancy at home under the state's pre-Roe law explicitly making "self-abortion" a crime. Ms. Rosenbloom vowed that NAPW will continue to fight these unlawful prosecutions until "all women in the U.S. are able to continue their pregnancies or end them - within or outside of the formal health care system -- with dignity, and safe from the threat of punishment for themselves and anyone who supports them."

December 14, 2016

We Need Your Support Because We Won't Give Up

The President-elect has stated that there must be some form of punishment for women who have abortions.

But, National Advocates for Pregnant Women has known for some time that punishing pregnant women - whatever the outcome of their pregnancies - is a present reality, not a hypothetical possibility. NAPW's work has exposed the fact that since 1973, at least 1,000 women have been arrested or otherwise punished because of pregnancy.

Indeed, even under an Obama administration supportive of reproductive rights, Indiana woman Purvi Patel was arrested, tried, and convicted in 2015 of feticide for attempting to have a safe abortion at home. (The Indiana governor at the time, it bears noting, is now the vice president-elect.) NAPW helped to overturn Ms. Patel's conviction and to win her release from the Indiana Women's Prison in September of this year.

In 2015, women in Georgia, Tennessee, and Arkansas were arrested for attempting to end a pregnancy. These women are still facing punishment for doing so. NAPW needs your support to win justice for each of them.

NAPW is the only organization devoted to challenging such arrests and developing long-term strategies to secure pregnant women's personhood. This is one reason why respected news sources such as The New York Times and The Guardian as well as the Thomson Reuters Foundation rely on NAPW for comment.

NAPW also needs your support to continue challenging coerced and forced treatment of pregnant women.

NAPW knows that the fight for reproductive and human rights must be expanded. This means supporting the power and potential of people in the Red States. Since 2011, NAPW has been a primary supporter of the annual Take Root: Red State Perspectives on Reproductive Justice conference. Last year, more than 600 activists attended the conference in Norman, Oklahoma.

NAPW was also instrumental in supporting Tennessee state-based activists in ensuring that Tennessee's fetal assault law permitting the arrest of pregnant women went out of effect (sunset) in July of 2016. And, working with local advocates in Arkansas and West Virginia, NAPW helped to win court decisions that freed numerous women from incarceration based on wrongful convictions for made-up pregnancy-based crimes.

Whether sponsoring a national meeting for birth justice activists in New York, coordinating a meeting in Montgomery, Alabama between the United Nations Working Group on Discrimination Against Women and reproductive justice advocates, or helping to persuade the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention that locking up pregnant women suspected of drug use discriminates against women, NAPW is supporting new and broader ways to fight for reproductive and social justice.

We need your support to continue building a movement for reproductive justice and human rights that will thrive in every administration and in every part of the country.

As our track record of almost 15 years demonstrates, no matter what the political climate, no matter how the political winds blow, NAPW will be there to defend and advance human rights and dignity.

Please make a generous contribution to NAPW to help us continue our visionary, groundbreaking, and effective advocacy and organizing.

February 1, 2016

Roe anniversary and new multimedia resources

As much as we celebrate the 1973 decision recognizing a woman's right to have an abortion, that right has been under attack since the minute the court made its ruling. In fact, Roe v. Wade started in Texas, and in March, another Texas abortion case will make it to nation's highest court. Whole Woman's Health v. Cole will determine whether a Texas law will stand -- and ultimately close about 75 percent of the state's abortion clinics.

This is the first time NAPW has authored and submitted an amicus ("friend of the court") brief in a case directly involving abortion. And while our amicus brief is one of 45 briefs filed, ours is the only one focusing on the link between reproductive injustice and criminal injustice. Deprive women of access to abortion services and when they find a way to have one anyway, many states allow them to be charged with a crime and catapulted into the criminal-justice system. That was what happened to Jennie McCormack, whose story is featured in this brief we filed with New York University Law School's Reproductive Justice Clinic and on behalf of 14 organizations.

New NAPW resources: Two short films for advocacy

Tennessee's fetal assault law, which authorizes the arrest of pregnant women who use any amount of a controlled substance, is set to "sunset" or expire in July. But just days into the legislative session, Sen. Reginald Tate and Rep. Terri Lynn Weaver introduced twin bills (SB 1629 and HB 1660) that would reauthorize the law and make it a permanent feature of the state's criminal code.

Need a refresher on the law? Check out this new resource from Brave New Films, and share it with your networks. Featuring advocates from Tennessee and NAPW, "To Prison for Pregnancy" exposes the real agenda behind Tennessee's measure and other states' related feticide laws: empowering government authorities to control and punish pregnant women.

NAPW has also commissioned this animated short film about Alicia Beltran, a pregnant woman who was subjected to Wisconsin's Unborn Child Protection law and is also featured in the video above. Using the actual transcript of her detention hearing (where her 14-week fetus was represented by a court-appointed attorney and she had no counsel), this short film shows with devastating clarity the chain of events that robbed Beltran of her liberty and human rights. NAPW and allies are continuing the challenge to this Wisconsin law in a sister case of Loertscher v. Schimel.

Register for Take Root

Take Root, the country's only red-state reproductive justice conference, is coming up on Feb. 26-27 at the University of Oklahoma. NAPW is a proud supporter of this event and will join extraordinatry presenters and activists who are fighting for justice in some of the nation's toughest political environments. We'll be sponsoring a panel where you can hear state-based advocates discuss advancing the human and civil rights of pregnant women. Registration ends Feb. 5.

December 17, 2012

Help NAPW? Yes you can!

November 11, 2012

Electricity, Elections, and the Need for Full-On Engagement

With NAPW's electricity back on after Hurricane Sandy and the elections over, there is much to celebrate and even more to do. As the New York Times editorial the day after the election warned: No one should expect a post election letup in the continuing courtroom fights over state efforts to restrict women's access to safe and legal abortions. National Advocates for Pregnant Women knows that this continuing, post-election fight extends to all pregnant women, not just those seeking to terminate a pregnancy.

July 17, 2012

What About the Personhood of Women?

June 15, 2012

Truthout Covers NAPW and our Cases

Eleanor Bader discusses how NAPW's legal work broadens the debate beyond pro-life versus pro-choice and challenges both sides to come together to stand-up for the basic human rights of ALL women, a pro-lives movement.

Devastating Decision in Indiana: Pregnancy Losses May Be Treated as Murder

April 27, 2012

NYTimes & TIME Magazines Feature NAPW

This weekend, National Advocates for Pregnant Women's work and perspectives are featured in the New York Times Magazine. The story, The Criminalization of Bad Mothers, focuses on pregnant drug using women who are being prosecuted under Alabama's Chemical Endangerment Act - a law intended to punish adults who bring children to environments where illegal drugs are being made.

This break-through story makes clear that there is no middle ground between these sorts of prosecutions and establishing legal principles that would deprive every mother "good or bad" of her fundamental constitutional and human rights, including the right to choose abortion. In the story, Troy Newman, president of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue admits that prosecutions of pregnant women "could ultimately get the anti-abortion movement where it wants to go."
TIME Magazine reinforces these connections in their story, Drug Addiction, 'Personhood' and the War on Women.

NAPW has long recognized that bringing pro-choice, birthing rights, criminal justice, and drug policy reform movements together could get us where we want to go - guaranteeing that all women, regardless of their circumstances, are treated like human beings and guaranteed access to respectful reproductive health and maternity care. NAPW wants to ensure that pregnant women do not become new fodder for America's massive system of incarceration.

The NYTimes story also stands out for its reliance on real experts who challenge prevailing myths about addiction and the war on drugs. To simplify a complex medical and psychosocial issue into a criminal issue is really just like using a hammer to play the piano, says Dr. Deborah Frank, a pediatrician and director of Boston Medical Center's Grow Clinic for Children.

The story has already garnered more than 600 comments on-line. We know there are compassionate people throughout the country who understand that fundamental rights should not depend on whether someone labels you "good" or "bad." Please make a donation to support NAPW's courageous work defending women and families and please March with us this Saturday, April 28th.

April 20, 2012

Time to Take Action - March with NAPW!

Time to Take Action! March with NAPW April 28th and May 1st for Reproductive Justice

Why is this Spring different from other Springs? Why in this season are we marching twice when sometimes we do not march at all? We march twice because the grassroots are rising and it is time to assemble and protest against the attacks on women and for Reproductive Justice.

March 8, 2012

Taking Root and Fighting Back

Numerous organizations and leaders who identify themselves as “pro-life” have assured the public that their efforts to re-criminalize abortion and establish the unborn as separate legal persons will not result in the arrest of women who end their pregnancies. But women are already being arrested. With your help, NAPW is fighting back.

January 19, 2012

Liberty for Pregnant Women in the “Land of the Free”

January 13, 2012

NAPW ally Dr. Robert Newman responds to "pill-baby" hysteria

An article in the Globe and Mail, fans the flames of "pill-baby" hysteria. NAPW ally and renowned expert on treating opioid-dependence during pregnancy, Dr. Robert Newman, takes the article to task for its biased portrayal of opioid users and their babies.

December 2, 2011

Fighting Personhood Measures -- In Disguise

We are still celebrating the fact that Mississippians soundly rejected the so-called “personhood” measure that would have given fertilized eggs, embryos, and fetuses separate legal rights. We know that when people understand that fetal separatist measures hurt all pregnant women, they mobilize. But prosecutors are still trying to use the courts to put into place the same kinds of personhood measures – only in disguise.

November 14, 2011

Victory in MS

Yesterday, Mississippians rejected (58-42) Proposition 26 that would have recognized fertilized eggs, embryos, and fetuses as separate legal persons under Mississippi law. Put another way, yesterday, 58% of Mississippians supported and reaffirmed the constitutional personhood of pregnant women.
We say this because NAPW knows that so-called personhood measures, as well as more subtle but just as dangerous feticide laws and anti-abortion legislation, are all ultimately designed to deprive pregnant women of their status as full persons under the law.

November 1, 2011

NAPW & Grassroots Opposition to Mississippi's "Personhood" Measure

On November 8th, 2011, Mississippians will vote on Proposition 26, a ballot measure that, if passed, would alter the state constitution, redefining the word “person” to include every human being from the moment of fertilization. While similar measures were defeated in Colorado by wide margins, in 2008 and again in 2010, many people worry that this measure will pass easily in Mississippi.

What few - in Mississippi or beyond - anticipated was the strong grassroots opposition that has emerged against the proposition. This week, National Advocates for Pregnant Women’s newest staff attorney, Allison Korn, published a commentary in RHReality Check describing the amazing grassroots rising there.

May 11, 2011

Some Mothers Just Can't Win: The Morality of Abortion and the Need for Reproductive Justice

Last week, the Washington Post’s On Faith blog ran a post in its Guest Voices series which posed the question of whether abortion is always morally wrong, and whether “religious conservatives really believe God gives them permission to pretend this world is far simpler than it is.”

Martha Woodroof defended the morality of abortion by describing her experience of visiting babies that she describes as “addicted” in a Neonatial Intensive Care Unit. If only religious conservatives could see these “damaged” babies, she argues, they would realize that abortion is not always morally wrong. Ironically, by implying that these babies would be better off not having been born than “birthed by addicts incapable of raising them,” she engages in the same oversimplification she criticizes. She perpetuates shame and stigma, blaming women rather than critically examining inequality, lack of drug treatment or compassion for drug users, or conventional wisdom on drugs, pregnancy, and parenting.

May 10, 2011

Rectifying really bad decisions.

After facing widespread criticism and condemnation (including an open letter from Lynn Paltrow, NAPW, ED) for their decision to block Tony Kushner from receiving an honorary degree from John Jay College- the CUNY executive committee reversed their original vote. Mr. Kushner will now accept the honorary degree from CUNY along with Lynn Paltrow and Judge Judith Kaye.

May 7, 2011

Open Letter to Members of the CUNY Board of Trustees

I understand that, on Monday, the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees will meet to reconsider the Board's decision to table the motion to approve awarding an honorary degree to Tony Kushner. As another candidate for an honorary degree from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, I am glad that this meeting will take place and hope that the Committee will reverse its decision.

Many of us receiving honorary degrees hold controversial views. Such views often inspire social change and bring about justice, or at the very least, encourage critical thinking that should be the hallmark of a college education.

John Jay students are themselves inspiring. These students deserve the opportunity to meet, even from afar, a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright who has been instrumental in bringing attention to major social justice issues.

As the Executive Committee reconsiders its decision, I hope they will also keep in mind that, when a member suggests that any group of people is “not human,” it is likely that he is speaking about at least some of John Jay College’s richly diverse student body.

John Jay’s graduating class of 2011 represents an extraordinary group of people. Virtually all of these students earned their degrees while working, raising and supporting families, and participating in internships. These students and the recognition of their achievements, not grandstanding about the Middle East or anything else, should be the focus of the Committee’s work.

Sincerely yours,

Lynn M. Paltrow, JD
Executive Director

cc: President Jeremy Travis, faculty and students of John Jay College of Criminal Justice

April 12, 2011

Response to NYT: Newly Born and Stigmatized

Lynn Paltrow responds to Saturday's NYT story on newborns withdrawing from drugs. Newly Born, and Withdrawing from Pain Killers relies on anecdotes and innuendo to focus attention on pregnant drug users rather than actual facts, lessons learned, or the real economic and ethical issues that need to be addressed.

March 31, 2011

Locking up pregnant women: the new cure for mental health problems?

As NAPW’s newest commentary in RH Reality Check and the Huffington Post makes clear, state laws treating fertilized eggs, embryos, and fetuses as legally separate from the pregnant women who carry, nurture, and sustain them creates the basis for denying pregnant women their personhood and their right to be treated like other human beings.

Being Honored, Being There: Rally with NAPW Saturday Feb. 26th

As you may know, Congress and state legislatures across the country are making women, especially pregnant women, the focus of their legislative activity . . . but not in a good way. Rather than propose legislation that would, for example, reduce America’s appalling rates of maternal and infant mortality, provide paid leave for parents (as pretty much every other western industrialized country does), or address the real economic problems that working families face, federal and state legislators are proposing bills that would deprive pregnant women of their constitutional and human rights.

January 11, 2011

Open Letter to Sarah Palin -- How Will You Lead, What Will You Say?

I am writing today about how you are responding to and how you will respond to the assassination attempt on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and the murders of six other people.

By way of introduction and background, I am a cousin of Congresswoman Giffords. I am also an ally of Dr. George Tiller, the Kansas doctor who provided abortion services and who was assassinated on May 31, 2009.

December 9, 2010

Protecting Dignity – Building Coalitions

We believe that a pregnant teenager who experiences a stillbirth deserves dignity and the power of a broad coalition behind her.

That is why when NAPW and Mississippi counsel Rob McDuff and Carrie Jourdan filed the opening briefs in Rennie Gibbs' case in the Mississippi Supreme Court, we didn’t do it alone. Five amicus briefs representing 70 local, state, national, and international organizations were filed in support of Ms. Gibbs, and in support of dignity, human rights, and the health of women and children. We want to highlight for you this spectacular collaborative effort.

October 27, 2010

Colorado defeats Fetal-Separatist Ballot Measure 3-1

This week, voters in Colorado once again rejected an effort to amend the Colorado state constitution to grant eggs, embryos, and fetuses separate, legal status from the pregnant women who carry, nurture, and sustain them. In the week leading up to the vote , NAPW released a commentary, PersonhoodUSA's Radical, Fetal-Separatist Agenda published on both RH Reality Check and the Huffington Post. Here is what we had to say:

October 13, 2010

Responding to the Arrests of Pregnant Women in Alabama

In 2008, Amanda K. was six months pregnant and went into early labor with a prolapsed umbilical cord. She went to a local hospital for care where she underwent emergency cesarean surgery to facilitate delivery of her son. Unfortunately, her son, delivered prematurely, died shortly after delivery.

August 6, 2010

Superior Court of New Jersey has ruled in favor of VM

We are happy to report that the Appellate Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey has ruled in favor of VM in New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services vs. V.M. and B.G.. In the Matter of J.M.G.

In this case, a VM's refusal to sign a consent form for cesarean surgery led to hospital interventions and a report of abuse to child welfare authorities.

July 12, 2010

MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA- On Friday, attorneys asked the court for permission to file an amicus curiae (friend-of-the-court) brief in the case A.K. v. Alabama (Docket: CR-09-0485) on behalf of twenty-four public health advocates, organizations and experts. This public health brief has been filed in support of A.K., who was convicted under Alabama’s chemical endangerment law because she attempted to carry her pregnancy to term in spite of a drug problem.

June 17, 2010

VIctory in Kentucky Supreme Court!

I am thrilled to let you know that the Kentucky Supreme Court once again refused to advance the war on drugs to women's wombs and made clear that pregnant women, no less than other persons, are protected by the rule of law. By refusing to accept the prosecution's argument that the "unborn" should be legally disconnected from the pregnant women who carry them and treated as if they were separate legal persons, this decision protects the civil and reproductive rights and health of all women in Kentucky.

June 10, 2010

The War on Drugs Coming to a Womb Near You

National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) works on behalf of all pregnant women including pregnant women who have been arrested and charged with child abuse or some other crime because they continued a pregnancy to term in spite of a drug problem. These pregnant women are particularly unpopular. Liked or disliked, misunderstood or understood, their cases have huge legal implications for all pregnant women- potentially setting devastating precedent that could establish special, separate legal rights for the fetus and the basis for punishing all pregnant women, including those who suffer miscarriages.

May 3, 2010

C.R.A.C.K. PROGRAM -- PERSONAL EMPOWERMENT OR CONTROL OF CERTAIN POPULATIONS?

On the surface, CRACK’s goals don’t necessarily seem dangerous or objectionable. For example they say that “The program is completely voluntary for participants,” and that their mission is “to empower the active or recovering addict with the ability and freedom to control their lives.” Statement, by their founder and director, Barbara Harris however make clear that control, not empowerment, is in fact CRACK’s primary purpose.

April 23, 2010

Register today for Drugs, Pregnancy and Parenting Part II

It's not too late to register for this phenomenal continuing professional education opportunity, presented by National Advocates for Pregnant Women, with New York University's School of Law & The NYU Silver School of Social Work.

March 23, 2010

A Reflection on Historic Health Care Reform!

Overall, the bill signed today is a huge victory for pregnant women, mothers and families. Nevertheless, much is being said about the abortion restrictions in the legislation and President Obama’s Executive Order.

Whether this historic health care reform maintains the injustice of existing anti-abortion restrictions or makes them worse really depends on the extent to which the mainstream pro-choice movement takes this experience as an opportunity to develop more effective political strategies.

March 12, 2010

Deadly Delivery The Maternal Health Care Crisis in the USA

I hope that Amnesty International’s Report, Deadly Delivery The Maternal Health Care Crisis in the USA, will get extensive coverage. It is a document that talks about "the right to life" as something that applies to pregnant women and new mothers. It makes clear that inadequate prenatal care is a sign of government failure, not a reason to urine drug test a pregnant woman. And, it clarifies that the real threats to maternal/fetal/child health are from failed government polices, not pregnant women or legal abortion.

March 6, 2010

Utah Continues Reckless Efforts to Lock-Up Pregnant Women

On Thursday, a Utah legislator withdrew a bill that would allow sentences of up to life in prison for a woman who experiences a miscarriage or stillbirth as a result of her "reckless" behavior. This move has been attributed to a "firestorm" of opposition. Almost immediately, however, Utah legislators revised the bill to exempt women who commit reckless acts but permit the prosecution of women who commit "knowing" acts that may result in stillbirths and miscarriages from the earliest stages of pregnancy.

March 3, 2010

Caution: Pregnancy May Be Hazardous to Your Liberty

NAPW has been busy working with friends and allies to make clear that new prosecutions and new policy proposals are once again threatening to put pregnant women and new mothers behind bars. As our commentary, "Caution: Pregnancy May be Hazardous to Your Liberty", in today's Huffington Post and on RH Reality Check explains:

January 22, 2010

While pregnant women have yet to be recognized as full persons under the Constitution, and while anti-abortion groups push relentlessly for recognition of fetal personhood under the Constitution, the U.S. Supreme Court has taken a significant step towards recognizing corporate personhood under the Constitution by extending First Amendment free speech protections to corporations seeking to influence elections. The 5-4 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission overturned approximately 100 years of precedents and reminds us, on this 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, that no constitutional precedent is secure.

December 23, 2009

Thanks Susan Jenkins for this Holiday Season Observation

According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, while both male and female reindeer grow antlers in the summer each year, male reindeer drop their antlers at the beginning of winter, usually late November to mid-December. Female reindeer retain their antlers till after they give birth in the spring.

Therefore, according to EVERY historical rendition depicting Santa's reindeer, EVERY single one of them, from Rudolph to Blitzen, had to be a female. And probably pregnant.

December 9, 2009

Tomorrow, December 10, 2009 the Kentucky Supreme Court will hear oral argument in a case involving the prosecution of a pregnant, drug-using woman. It is an important opportunity to understand the broader issues at stake in cases that seem narrowly focused on the very small percentage of pregnant women who use illegal drugs. Oral argument is scheduled for 10 AM and you will be able to watch a live stream of the arguments by clicking this link

November 27, 2009

NAPW Advocating on Behalf of Precious Women

Last weekend I saw the movie Precious. This movie, about "an overweight, illiterate teen who is pregnant with her second child" is a soaring tribute to human dignity and, for me, captures the reasons why NAPW takes the cases we do.

Recently, NAPW chose to work on behalf of R.G. -- an African American teenager from Mississippi who became pregnant when she was fifteen. She suffered a stillbirth one month after turning sixteen. What was the state's response? They arrested her and charged her with murder.

NAPW learned about the case shortly before R.G. was scheduled to go on trial as an adult. We learned that her mother's efforts to obtain help from other organizations had been rebuffed. NAPW reached out to her local counsel and offered our assistance.

October 23, 2009

NAPW Writing Contest Winners Selected

After much deliberation by our esteemed panel of expert judges, the winners of NAPW’s first law student writing contest have been selected. Co-sponsored by 19 organizations and individuals, this contest was designed to advance feminist legal scholarship on the subject of pregnant women’s civil and human rights. Specifically, it asked law students to address the statutory, constitutional, and/or human rights arguments that can be made to challenge the trend of banning pregnant women from having a vaginal birth after a caesarean section (VBAC). The subject of the contest is particularly timely. Recently, the story of Joy Szabo, an Arizona mother forced to travel over 300 miles from home in an effort to avoid unnecessary surgery, has been the subject of both local and national media attention. Even CNN covered the story —raising unprecedented awareness of the fact that VBAC is unattainable at nearly half of all U.S. hospitals due to either explicit policies or lack of willing providers.

NAPW and co-sponsors hoped this contest would encourage a new generation of legal scholars to address birthing issues as proper subjects of academic research and legal action. We are proud to announce the winners of this cutting-edge contest:

October 5, 2009

Victory: Shackling Pregnant Prisoners in Labor Found to be Cruel!

On Friday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eight Circuit (the federal level appellate court that reviews decisions from federal district courts in North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Minnesota, and Arkansas) issued the long-awaited decision in Nelson v. Norris. In this case, Shawanna Nelson argued that being forced to go through the final stages of labor with both legs shackled to her hospital bed was cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the 8th Amendment to the Constitution. She argued that she should be allowed to sue the director of the prison and the guard who repeatedly re-shackled her legs to the bed. Ms. Nelson, an African-American woman, was incarcerated for non-violent offenses of credit card fraud and "hot checks."

September 10, 2009

Pregnant Women and Mothers Deserve Better

In the aftermath of Dr. George Tiller's murder many people have asked whether anti-abortion rhetoric constitutes "hate speech" or an "incitement to terrorism." This rhetoric includes language describing abortion as a form of violence, as torture, an attack on innocent life, executing a child, killing, baby-killing, murder, child murder, mass murder, like slavery, a genocide, a holocaust, worse than any holocaust.

But whether or not it is hate speech, and whether or not it can be linked directly to the murder of Dr. Tiller and other abortion providers, it is language that reveals a frightening degree of anger, disrespect for and hostility not only to the people who perform abortions but also to those who have abortions -- pregnant women.

American Life League: Anti-Abortion "Personhood" Measures Really Will Hurt All Pregnant Women

NAPW's video "How Personhood USA & The Bills They Support Will Hurt ALL Pregnant Women" and an earlier version that both appeared on the Huffingtonpost.com are attracting the attention of anti-abortion organizations who advance Personhood Measures across the country. These measures would grant "unborn" life, from the moment of fertilizations, full personhood status under state constitutional law. Such measures would not only be used as a basis for ending the right to choose an abortion, they would also provide a basis for depriving pregnant women going to term of their rights to liberty, bodily integrity, medical decision-making and even life.

July 25, 2009

Evelyn Castro -- a life well lived

July 22, 2009

New Jersey VM Case - A Victory of Sorts

Last week, a mid-level court of appeals in NJ avoided deciding the question of whether or not a pregnant woman's decision-making during labor and childbirth may be the basis for a finding, under state civil child welfare laws, of abuse and neglect. While the decision is a victory of sorts, it nevertheless reveals how extraordinarily unsettled and contested pregnant women's rights are.

June 22, 2009

Sotomayor Confirmation, Joint Letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee From Over 100 Legal and Health Experts

NAPW and More than 100 Signatories Request That Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings Consider Impact on All Pregnant Women

On June 22, 2009 National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) released to the public a letter with more than 100 signatories sent to the Judiciary Committee of the United States Senate requesting that the Committee ask Judge Sonia Sotomayor and all future Supreme Court nominees: Is there a point in pregnancy when you believe women lose their civil rights? This letter, discussed in Rachel Roth's RhRealityCheck Commentary, addresses the harm that will result if abortion is outlawed and provides concrete examples of civil rights violations against pregnant women that undermine both maternal and fetal health and that would occur routinely if Roe v. Wade were overturned.

"Review of both civil and criminal cases since Roe v. Wade makes clear that what is at stake in each nomination to the Supreme Court is not only the right to choose abortion," said Lynn M. Paltrow, Founder and Executive Director of NAPW, "but also the fundamental issue of whether or not pregnant women are recognized as full Constitutional persons under the law."

June 15, 2009

Bail granted for imprisoned HIV-positive pregnant woman in Maine

This morning, National Advocates for Pregnant Women and Center for HIV Law and Policy, and Elizabeth Frankel and Valerie Wright of the Maine law firm Verrill Dana, LLP, filed an emergency amicus (friend-of-the-court) brief on behalf of 28 public health experts, advocates, and organizations challenging the imprisonment of an HIV positive pregnant woman in order to protect her “innocent” “unborn child.”

Ms. T, a 28 year-old woman from Cameroon, was arrested in January 2009 for allegedly having false immigration documents. Shortly after her arrest, she learned she was both pregnant and HIV positive. On May 14, 2009, instead of sentencing her to “time served,” which was consistent with the federal sentencing guidelines and the recommendations of her attorney and the United States Attorney’s Office, United States District Court Judge John Woodcock extended Ms. T’s sentence to 238 days, making clear that the sentence was calculated specifically to ensure that she remained incarcerated for the duration of her pregnancy. See Judge Jails Pregnant Woman Until Baby is Born and Behind Bars for Being Pregnant and HIV-Positive.

June 2, 2009

In Memory of Dr. George Tiller. He supported women's dignity

On May 31, 2009, Dr. George Tiller was murdered. When I think of Dr. Tiller and his clinic I think of compassion. What Dr. Tiller and his staff did each and every day was to give women their dignity.

Barely two weeks ago, when President Obama gave the commencement address at Notre Dame he said, 'As citizens of a vibrant and varied democracy, how do we engage in vigorous debate? How does each of us remain firm in our principles, and fight for what we consider right, without demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side?'

Upon Dr. Tiller's death, Randall Terry, the founder of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue who led protests against Tiller's clinic in 1991, issued a statement saying in part, 'I am more concerned that the Obama Administration will use Tiller's killing to intimidate pro-lifers into surrendering our most effective rhetoric and actions.' This rhetoric includes describing Dr. Tiller as 'a mass-murderer' and abortion as a kind of 'slaughter.' It also includes describing Dr. Tiller, as Bill O'Reilly did, as 'guilty of Nazi stuff.'

This rhetoric of 'mass murder' and 'slaughter,' killing and genocide, all commonly used by a variety of religious and political organizations that oppose abortion, is language that is demonizing and dangerous. Is this really how we think of women who have abortions, some lucky enough to do so with the support of caring doctors? Do we really believe that pregnant women who end their pregnancies and the health care providers who help them are no different from Hitler or Pol Pot? Do we really think that the individual decisions of pregnant women are the same as, or as claimed by some groups, worse than, government-sponsored genocide?

May 16, 2009

President Obama at Notre Dame, the Bishops and the "Right to Life"

Notre Dame University's invitation to President Obama to give the commencement speech this year has aroused significant controversy. NAPW's commentary about this issue now appears in the Huffingtonpost.com and also on RhRealitycheck.

The USCCB says that its political positions are based on the belief that “all human life is sacred." They cite this quotation from Archbishop John Roach, as the expression of their guiding vision: "We are committed to full legal recognition of the right to life of the unborn child, and will not rest in our efforts until society respects the inherent worth and dignity of every member of the human race." Yet an examination of the USCCB’s public positions in two high profile legal cases, described in a chart NAPW developed, raises a key question: Does the USCCB believe that all human life – except that of pregnant women -- is sacred?

May 4, 2009

Coerced abortion? Try saying no to Cesarean Surgery!

Last week the Huffingtonpost and RhRealitycheck ran our latest commentary Concerned about coerced abortion? Try saying no to Cesarean Surgery, discussing legislation in twelve states that claims to protect pregnant women from coercion when they seek abortions but ignores real evidence of the fact that women in labor and childbirth are too often denied the opportunity to make fully informed decisions. We hope that you will read the commentary and spread the word. NAPW is also proud to let you know that we have been nominated for the Our Bodies Ourselves Women's Health Hero. You can vote for us, or just enjoy reading all of the nominations, including those of many of our allies and friends.

In Indiana, we helped to get a felony child neglect charge dismissed against Brooke Honaker who carried her pregnancy to term in spite of a drug problem. This case was originally discussed in a news article that highlighted NAPW's work on behalf of drug-using pregnant women. NAPW prepared a memo for local counsel demonstrating that Indiana precedent (some of which our staff helped establish years ago) clearly barred the neglect charge against Ms. Honaker. Local defense counsel, Mr. Jon Owen, used this information in a motion to dismiss. We are happy to report that the court granted the motion.

This case and many like it make clear the need for and value of NAPW's persistence and vigilance.

April 16, 2009

Another NAPW Victory -- Indiana This Time

NAPW is proud to let you know that our work helped get a felony neglect charge dismissed against an Indiana woman who carried her pregnancy to term in spite of a drug problem. After Brooke Honaker tested positive for methamphetamine while pregnant, she was charged with felony neglect of a dependent. She was drug tested as part of her pre-existing probation. The prosecutor filed the neglect charge despite a clear precedent in Indiana establishing that the neglect of a dependent statute does not apply to the context of pregnancy. See Herron v. State, 729 N.E.2d 1008 (Ind. Ct. App. 2000). The Honaker case was originally discussed in a news article that highlighted NAPW's work on behalf of drug using pregnant women.

Contrary to the assumptions made in the article and underlying the arrest, methamphetamine use during pregnancy has not been found to create unique harms, or harms greater than exposure to such things as cigarettes. A discussion of this research by Dr. Barry Lester, available as part of an NPR report on an Oklahoma case, can be access by clicking here.

NAPW prepared a memo for local counsel showing that Indiana precedent (some of which our staff helped establish years ago) clearly applied in this case and barred the neglect charge against Ms. Honaker. Even though there was no legal basis for this arrest, the prosecutor refused to drop the charge even after being advised of the controlling precedent. Local counsel, Mr. Jon Owen persisted in defending Ms. Honaker. He used the information in our memo and filed a motion to dismiss. We are happy to report that the court granted it.

This case is a great example of the need for and value of NAPW's persistence and vigilance in maintaining gains already achieved. It is also a terrific example of good legal defense work. Congratulations to Mr. Owen.

This case also illustrates that in spite of the absence of laws authorizing these arrests and, in cases like this, court decisions explicitly banning such charges, prosecutors continue bring these cases. Women like Ms. Honaker are not only charged with a non-existent crime, they experience a traumatizing arrest, detention, and lengthy legal battle while often failing to get the drug treatment they may need.

April 1, 2009

Traditional Values Coalition vs. NAPW?

We knew that our recent commentary and video that challenges PersonhoodUSA was likely to draw fire from the Right. We were not mistaken. Shortly after releasing our video and commentary, Andrea Lafferty, President of the Traditional Values Coalition, wrote a response seeking to discredit National Advocates for Pregnant Women by "exposing" our work on behalf of drug using pregnant women.

March 24, 2009

NAPW - New Video, New Blogs

In spite of, or perhaps more accurately because of, the recent elections, anti-choice activists are gearing up. Legislators in five states have introduced "personhood" bills that would grant the "unborn" from the moment of fertilization state constitutional rights. Bills have already passed in the North Dakota Assembly and in the Montana Senate. Today Huffingtonpost.com posted our blog about the bills and personhood USA. Cindy Copper on her Words of Choice blog (and picked up by RHrealitycheck.org) has this to say about the NAPW video:

What's really great is that NAPW stepped out of the policy-wonk bubble and used a little creativity to describe in clear and factually accurate terms what can sometimes seem obscure or complex. When the propaganda of the anti-choicers is sliced away, it's pretty simple -- these "personhood" laws would benefit no one and be a disaster for women... With its video, NAPW is also spreading its communications sensibilities -- and in especially admirable ways.

While I wish the story appeared 20 years ago, it gets an awful lot right. One thing it got wrong though is the caption to the picture accompanying the story. The caption for the photo describes it as "a 1988 photo, testing a baby addicted to cocaine." Ahh, the intransigence of misinformation. It is ironic indeed, that the story, designed to debunk much of the junk science and media hype with regard to the effects of prenatal exposure to drugs, includes rank misinformation in the picture caption. In 2004, every leading researcher in the field joined a letter to none other than the New York Times and other media outlets asking them to stop using the term "crack baby" and specifically explaining that:

The term “crack addicted baby” is no less defensible. Addiction is a technical term that refers to compulsive behavior that continues in spite of adverse consequences. By definition, babies cannot be “addicted” to crack or anything else. In utero physiologic dependence on opiates (not addiction), known as Neonatal Narcotic Abstinence Syndrome, is readily diagnosed, but no such symptoms have been found to occur following prenatal cocaine exposure."

I also have to point out that the story suggests that the prosecution of pregnant women ended in the new millennium. We really wish that were true.

Finally, in conjunction with our upcoming program, NAPW has posted a lecture by Judy Murphy, founder of Moms Off Meth. The video quality is not the best, but the information is so clear, accessible and important, that anyone interested in learning how we can really help pregnant women and families will watch and listen.

January 26, 2009

Attacks on Pregnant Women, Hidden Messages

For any of you who check on the NAPW blog, you will notice that it is not so much a blog as an occasional commentary or notice. Today you are in for a change.

Almost every day there is something in the newspaper (yes I still actually get some of my news from things that are published with ink on newsprint) that connects to NAPW’s work. Here are two thoughts for the day.

For a long time I have been troubled by an interview posted on Youtube with one, Dr. Paul McHugh, a psychiatrist hired by the state of Kansas to go after George Tiller, a Kansas doctor who provides much needed abortion services. Families, many of whom would describe themselves as pro-life, go to his clinic for help from all over the United States. Dr. McHugh was hired as part of an effort to prevent Dr. Tiller from providing these services. In the interview, Dr. McHugh claims that there is never ever, even possibly a psychological need for an abortion.

As is often the case in the abortion debate, this interview also serves as a vehicle for other political messages and agendas. Very often that agenda includes reinforcing the mythology of government care – the idea that services and support are readily available to people -- if only they would go out and get it. So for example, Dr. McHugh asserts, in this interview that "after all, in our country, the resources for psychiatric services and psychological services are rich." Really?

An op ed in today’s New York Times addressing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for soldiers returning from Iraq reports that “Less than 40 percent of service members who get a diagnosis of P.T.S.D. receive mental health services, and only slightly more than half of recent veterans who receive treatment get adequate care. Those who seek follow-up treatment run into delays of up to 90 days, which suggests there is a serious shortage of mental health professionals available to help them.”

So if even our soldiers can’t get the psychological care they need -- it is hard to believe that pregnant women -- many of whom are poor, many of whom lack health insurance, and virtually none of whom have insurance that covers mental health services -- will find our country "rich" in psychological services.

Here is another one. Although no law in Alabama permits the prosecution of a woman who continues her pregnancy to term in spite of a drug problem, a local prosecutor has decided to make his own law. He claims that the state’s chemical endangering law – a law designed to deter and punish the creation of things like methamphetamine labs – should be judicially expanded to apply to pregnant women in relationship to the fetuses they carries. (A pregnant woman = a methamphetamine manufacturing and processing plant?) Although every leading public health and child welfare group to address this issue thinks this approach will undermine both maternal and fetal health, this prosecutor asserts that imprisoning pregnant women will somehow protect their children.

So the other day I was reading about Alabama county jails. Public experts generally agree that good nutrition is important to achieving healthy pregnancies. Turns out though that by law Alabama provides a state food allowance of only $1.75 per prisoner per day. Just to give you an idea of how little that is – I learned from Paul Krugman’s column today that the cost of a free school lunch for a poor child is $2.57. A single very low cost meal per day is $2.75—but the state of Alabama will protect its future children by imprisoning pregnant women and feeding them for an entire day on less than $1.75? I say “less than” because Alabama rewards local sheriffs by allowing them to spend even less than $1.75 per day and keeping the difference for him or herself.

December 29, 2008

Take Action: Write to the Obama-Biden Transition Team

With the new Administration, we have an opportunity to have input into the national health care agenda; we need your help to do this. . We are asking you to tell the Obama-Biden Transition team that health care must include comprehensive care for all pregnant women – whether they are seeking to end a pregnancy or hoping to go to term.

NAPW is very proud that as a result of our cross movement building and collaborations, major organizations, including the Center for American Progress, a coalition of pro-choice organizations and the National Organization for Women (NOW) have all submitted reproductive health agendas to the new Administration that include proposals not only to protect the right to choose abortion and to use and understand the value of contraceptive services, but also to advance the health and rights of women going to term.

For a long time, I believed that the abortion issue would continue to be used successfully as a brilliant diversion to divide and distract – particularly in the area of national or universal health care. It seemed that just raising the issue of including abortion in a new health care plan could potentially scuttle the whole thing. Today, though, I think we can move beyond that – from claims of supporting a culture of life, to a health care plan that actually supports and provides care for all the women who give that life.

November 20, 2008

The Elections, The Transition Team, The Change We Need!

As many of you know by now, all of the state anti-abortion/fetal rights ballot measures were defeated. NAPW, working with extraordinary state and local allies in Colorado and South Dakota, played a role. Indeed, we can't help but believe that our video, viewed by thousands of people in those states in the days leading up to the vote, and our efforts to expand the base, especially in Colorado this year, made a difference. The Colorado amendment was defeated 3-1, strongly suggesting that our efforts, along with COLOR and L. Indra Lusero of the the Luz Reproductive Justice Think Tank, to broaden the base and expand the arguments -- account for the huge margin of victory.

The event, co-hosted by Gloria Steinem,Caroline's comedy-club owner Caroline Hirsch and Ms. Foundation President and CEO, Sara K. Gould, was an evening of sisterly fun and celebration as prominent comedians, such as Suzanne Whang, host of HGTV's House Hunters, serving as event Emcee, Kristen Schaal, well-known "Senior" Women's Correspondent for the Daily Show, and Marina Franklin, of Chapelle's Show fame, to name a few, engaged the audience with sharp comedy smartly presented in a feminist context. "The need for humor and hope to spur us on," according to Ms. Foundation President Sara K. Gould, "has never been greater."

I never had the privilege of meeting Barbara, but knew about some of her work, including her book, The Doctor’s Case Against the Pill. This book and her activism exposed the serious health dangers posed especially by the first generation of the birth control pill. Indeed, Barbara Seaman’s work probably saved my own mother’s life.

September 4, 2008

NAPW -- Open Letter to Governor Palin

Today, following Governor Sarah Palin's speech accepting her party's nomination as their Vice Presidential candidate, Alternet.org published National Advocates for Pregnant Women's open letter asking her to rethink her position on abortion. The Austin Statesman and the Huffington Post are also running this commentary this is now available in Spanish as well.

Dear Governor Sarah Palin:

Many Americans agree with your position regarding abortion – they do this as a matter of faith, ethics, personal experience and sometimes politics. We are just wondering though, if you have thought about what would happen if you succeeded in getting your position – that fetuses have a right to life -- established as the law of the land? Did you know that it not only threatens the lives, health and freedom of women who might want or need someday to end their pregnancies, it would also give the government the power to control the lives of women – like you who -- go to term?

Your last pregnancy, the one that has become the topic of widespread discussion and speculation provides an important opportunity to demonstrate how this could be true.

August 7, 2008

Colorado's Proposed Ballot Measure Bad for ALL Pregnant Women

Today, Colorado based reproductive justice activist L. Indra Lusero and I had a commentary published in key media outlets in Colorado. Anti-choice activists there were successful in collecting enough signatures to place their proposed amendment to the state constitution on their November Ballot. This so called “Human Life Amendment” to the State Constitution, number 48 on the November ballot, declares that the term person includes “any human being from the moment of fertilization” and would give zygotes, embryos and fetuses “inalienable rights, equality of justice and due process of law.” Most of the opposition to this amendment so far focuses on how the amendment could limit the right to choose abortion. Our commentary makes clear that much much more is at stake:

This Communications Connection Teleconference and Webinar is sponsored by RH Reality Check. The Communications Connection web forum series is a service for the domestic reproductive rights community from DDB Issues & Advocacy, in partnership with RH Reality Check. It is generously supported by the David & Lucile Packard Foundation.

I will be speaking about the fact that many people in the U.S. work to protect the rights and dignity of pregnant women; however, the issue of abortion is so divisive that many of these advocates do not work together or even speak to one another.

All of them, from pro-choice advocates defending the right to choose abortion to birthing rights advocates pushing for compassionate, quality prenatal care, advocate for the same women, whatever their position on abortion.

Both groups struggle with policies undermining women's health and wellbeing. Both recognize women's need for support and information. Both are hurt by legislation so focused on restricting abortion that it overlooks pregnant women's other numerous health concerns.

Despite their differences, pro-choice and birthing rights advocates have begun to come together over their shared commitment to the health and rights of pregnant women. This talk will address progress towards expanding the Reproductive Justice base, legislative and policy proposals reflecting shared values and "pro-active" legislative possibilities, recent court decisions demonstrating connections between abortion and birthing activists, and the threat to all by measures like Colorado's ballot initiative conferring personhood at conception under the state constitution.

Awakened by late-night pounding and his doorbell ringing, Palmdale resident Jesus Bejarano found a social worker and two sheriff's deputies demanding he turn over his 20-month-old daughter, Kelly.

The social worker said Bejarano's 29-year-old wife, Cheila Herrera, had tested positive for amphetamines and PCP at Antelope Valley Hospital after giving birth to the couple's son a week earlier.
Their son, Jesse, who was born prematurely and was still at the hospital, had already been placed in protective custody.

June 2, 2008

We Moved!

In 2007, NAPW had a major growth spurt. We went from an organization of 2-3 full time people to a core staff of 7-8 plus numerous consultants and interns. We outgrew our space and our systems. All of us have, for nearly a year, been crowded into barely 1,200 square feet with only 2 phone lines and limited network capacity.

I am thrilled to announce that we moved to new space that will allow us to build appropriate infrastructure including fully networked systems. Our new offices are located at 15 West 36th Street Suite 901, New York, New York 10018. Mail from the old office will be forwarded to the new one (in case you were worried).

There are many things about the office and location that are auspicious. . .

May 12, 2008

Regina McKnight -- Victory at Long Last

Today, we were thrilled to learn that after 8 long years, the South Carolina Supreme Court has finally reversed the 20-Year Homicide Conviction of Regina McKnight. The unanimous decision recognizes that research linking cocaine to stillbirths is based on "outdated" and inaccurate medical information. NAPW has been working on behalf of Ms. McKnight for nearly 10 years.

Specifically the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled that Regina McKnight did not have a fair trial when she was convicted in 2001 for homicide by child abuse. Through this conviction she became the first woman in South Carolina to be convicted of homicide by child abuse as a result of suffering an unintentional stillbirth.

McKnight was arrested in 1999, several months after she experienced a stillbirth at Conway Hospital. McKnight’s conviction was based on the jury’s acceptance of the scientifically unsupported claim that her cocaine use caused the stillbirth. McKnight had no prior arrest history and even prosecutors agreed that she had no intention of harming the fetus or losing the pregnancy. Nevertheless, upon conviction she was given a twenty-year sentence, suspended to twelve years in prison with no chance for parole. She was projected to be released in 2010.

The medical community has strongly opposed McKnight’s prosecution and conviction. From the beginning, leading South Carolina and national medical, public health, and child welfare organizations and experts have opposed the prosecution and conviction. These organizations—represented by us-- the National Advocates for Pregnant Women and the Drug Policy Alliance, with South Carolina counsel Susan Dunn included the South Carolina Medical Association, the South Carolina Nurses Association, the South Carolina Association of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselors, and the South Carolina Coalition for Healthy Families argued in an amicus (friend of the court) brief argued that women do not lose their rights to a fair trial upon becoming pregnant and challenged the state’s evidence that cocaine use or anything else that McKnight did or did not do caused the stillbirth.

March 17, 2008

Prosecutions in Alabama? Say No!

On Saturday March 15, 2008 the New York Times published a story, In Alabama, a Crackdown on Pregnant Drug Users. We were pleased that it did not use such stigmatizing and scientifically baseless terms as "crack" and " meth" baby. We were disappointed though that the story did not quote any experts in the field. Rather the story said: "Some doctors and advocacy groups maintain that the effects of drugs on pregnant women and their fetuses are not fully known. . ." This phrasing suggests a level of doubt that simply does not exist. It implies that arresting pregnant women who become pregnant and continue to term in spite of a drug problem might somehow be justified. In fact, every leading medical and public health group to take a position on the issue opposes prosecution of pregnant women and new mothers as counterproductive to both maternal and fetal health. Moreover, as the information we provided to the New York Times makes clear, there is no room for doubt. Virtually every leading researcher in the field of prenatal exposure to drugs has concluded that while use of these drugs should not be viewed as benign, the actual and extensive peer reviewed and published research that has been done has been unable to identify a recognizable "condition, syndrome or disorder" resulting from exposure to these drugs that would justify singling out their use as a basis for the prosecutions of pregnant women.

There are many reasons to oppose the prosecution of pregnant women and new mothers. These prosecutions, if upheld would create legal precedent for the finding that women, upon becoming pregnant lose their civil and human rights. If a pregnant woman can be viewed as a child abuser before she ever gives birth, or as a murderer because she can not guarantee a healthy birth outcome, she ceases to exist as a full human being and full rights bearing citizen. Here is just one small example. Very often in these cases it is assumed that women should be able to stop their drug use when they become pregnant. But because pregnant women are no less human than other people, they too become addicted to drugs . This means that the desire and intent to stop is very often not enough to overcome the addiction. Pregnant women no less than people like Rush Limbaugh deserve compassion and treatment as they struggle with addiction not the presumption that they can simply stop. If pregnant women fail to overcome fully an addiction in the short term of pregnancy, their continued use is taken by some as evidence of a desire to harm their future child -- rather than as evidence that they are human beings and struggling like other people with the physiological and psychological ramifications of addiction.

Other reasons to oppose the prosecution of pregnant women include the fact that incarcerating pregnant women in prisons and jails that do not provide adequate health care and that permit shackling of women who are pregnant and in labor will not help anyone. Moreover, arguing about prosecutions of pregnant women keeps us from talking about the lack of appropriate family drug treatment for pregnant women and parents, lack of universal health care in general, and lack of commitment to our country's mothers and children.

Oh, and by the way, NAPW is working with local attorneys and advocacy organizations to challenge these prosecutions.

Want to do something to help stop these cases? Send a letter/email about how these prosecutions are bad for both maternal and fetal health to: The Alabama Prosecutor: Covington County DA Greg Gambrill at gambrilg@alaweb.com; and to Alabama Governor Bob Riley, Attorney General Troy King, and Donald E. Williamson, MD at the Alabama Department of Health.

January 23, 2008

On the 35th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade

Salon.com asked me to write 150-250 words on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Joining other activists including Pamela Merritt (aka Shark-Fu), Shelby Knox, Cristina Page, Jennifer Baumgardner, and Gloria Feldt, among others. Some people feel that after 35 years, reproductive justice activists should not have to spend their time defending the right to choose abortion. But Roe was just a beginning. The fact that America still does not have any national policy of paid maternity leave is just one of many indications of how far we still have to go. My few words in Salon.com give an indication of just how far that is.

December 21, 2007

Read Dr. Stone's op-ed re: OKC stillbirth prosecution

Dr. Stone is an OB/GYN in Oklahoma City and state chair for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Click here to read her op-ed, "Is meth murder charge useful?", from the December 19th edition of The Daily Oklahoman, the state's largest paper.

December 17, 2007

Listen to segment of major Oklahoma medical panel on Women, Pregnancy, and Drug Use online

On Wednesday, November 14th, Oklahoma City hosted a major medical panel called Women, Pregnancy and Drug Use: Medical Facts, Practical Responses and the Well-Being of Children and Families. To listen to segments of the forum, click here to play the mp3 from the KGOU site.

For a flier with full event information and panelists' bios, please click here.

Recently, in State v. Hernandez, the state prosecuted an Oklahoma City woman for murder after suffering a stillbirth and testing positive for methamphetamine — despite a lack of medical evidence connecting the two events and the disapproval of local and national medical and public health associations and individuals. Hear renowned local and national experts in the fields of medicine and social work separate myth from fact regarding drug use and pregnancy, discuss the implications of the case for the health and well-being of Oklahoma’s women and babies, and map out strategies for effective and appropriate responses to addiction and pregnancy.

The keynote was Dr. Barry Lester, the Director of the Brown University Center for Study of Children at Risk, while the other panelists included four other Oklahoma-based medical/public health experts, including the state representative to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and a woman who has been personally affected by substance abuse, the drug war, prison, and her experiences with the criminal justice system.

To see Dr. Lester's entire PowerPoint presentation, click here and go to the bottom link, labeled "Oklahoma City Forum."

September 11, 2007

NAPW appearing this Sunday on Birth Today in New York Panel

This Sunday, September 16th, NAPW Executive Director Lynn M. Paltrow will be one of the panelists for a Birth Today in New York discussion following a sold-out performance of Birth. This play, based on over one hundred interviews Karen Brody conducted with mothers across America who gave birth between 2000-2004, and directed by Heidi Marshall, tells the true stories of 8 women, painting a portrait of how low-risk, educated women are giving birth in America today. All three performances of Birth are currently sold out, but any announcement re: additional performances will appear here.

[Last week] the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the first federal law that bans an abortion procedure for all women and all doctors in all states. By holding that Congress's interest in "preserving and promoting fetal life" trumps both scientific evidence and the health of pregnant women, the newly reconfigured Supreme Court overturned the opinions of three lower federal courts and its own precedent. While Justice Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion, claims that the "act expresses respect for the dignity of human life," the decision expressly devalues the women who give that life.

December 20, 2006

How can we claim to support a culture of life if we don't value the women who give that life?

To answer this and related questions National Advocates for Pregnant Women and more than 60 organizational and individual co-sponsors are holding the National Summit to Ensure the Health and Humanity of Pregnant and Birthing Women, January 18- Sunday, January 21, 2007 at the Hilton Airport Atlanta, Atlanta, GA.

There are over twenty plenaries and workshops at the Summit addressing the question of how we do or do not value pregnant women and mothers. Among the workshops are:

How Can We Ensure the Health and Humanity of Pregnant and Birthing Women When Pregnant Women, Mothers, and Breastfeeding Women Find So Little Support From Their Workplaces and Communities?

Barriers to Care and Control: From Bans on Vaginal Births After C-sections (VBAC Bans) to Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP Laws,) Do Women Have a Say in Pregnancy and Childbirth?

Medical Interventions That Can Help and Hurt: How Do We Ensure Women's Informed Consent, and Women's Ability to Protect Their Reproductive Health and Lives?

New co-sponsors of this extraordinary event include the American College of Nurse-Midwives, the Committee on Women Population and the Environment, Generation Five, the Idaho Women's Network, the Midwives Alliance of North America, Planned Parenthood of Georgia, Backline, the Third Wave Foundation, and the Council on Anthropology & Reproduction

The Summit is already receiving media coverage and praise. On December 14, Paris Hatcher of Georgians for Choice, Susan Hodges of Citizens for Midwifery and Lynn Paltrow(me) of NAPW appeared on WRFG, (89.3FM) Radio Free Georgia. We gathered by phone to appear on the Womanspeak program hosted by the incomparable C. Wiatta Freeman. We had a whole hour to talk about the Summit and its goals including bringing together two disparate groups that in fact have many shared values and concerns: those who identify themselves primarily as pro-choice, and those who advocate for maternity/birth with dignity (midwives, doulas, alternative birth practitioners, and other health care providers).

Commenting on the Summit and the Preliminary Program, we received high praise from writer, researcher and author Robbie Davis Floyd:

The program is indeed truly amazing. . .

I want to compliment . . . everyone at NAPW on your wide reach. Most conferences where I speak are limited in audience members to midwives, childbirth educators, doulas, nurses, docs, anthropologists, advocates. You have managed to reach all these groups--I hear about this conference from all of them--news comes to me from all these groups about how important the conference is, a must-attend! There would be no way for me not to know about it even if you had never contacted me personally. This is a first for me--to get input from all the groups I belong to about one conference, and to see on the speaker roster many of the very best birth people along with the very best activists, advocates, anthropologists, practitioners. I am totally impressed and very excited!

I hope this will be the start of ongoing dialogue, action, and future such events--I feel that we are creating a community here much wider than the ones we normally participate in.

We hope you will join us at the Summit. If you have not registered yet you can write to Summit@advocatesforpregnantwomen.org to find out how you can still participate in this groundbreaking event.

October 31, 2006

Over 50 Co-Sponsors for the National Summit to Ensure the Health and Humanity of Pregnant and Birthing Women, Thursday, January 18– Sunday, January 21, 2007 at the Hilton Airport Atlanta, Atlanta, GA.

Demonstrating an extraordinary interest in finding common ground and addressing the shared concerns of pregnant and birthing women -- more than 50 organizations have signed on as formal co-sponsors of this groundbreaking event. We don't think we need to say more than to share this list as evidence of unprecedented collaboration and support:

September 21, 2006

Arrests Continue, But So Do The Challenges

This week, NAPW's commentary, coauthored by NAPW summer law intern Julie Ehrlich, Jailing Pregnant Women Raises Health Risks, is featured in Women's E-news. In recent months, pregnant women have been arrested and jailed in South Carolina, New Mexico, Arizona, Alabama, Colorado, Georgia, Missouri, North Dakota and New Hampshire, among other states, based on the claim that pregnant women can be considered child abusers even before they have given birth. This commentary challenges one of the main justifications for such arrests -- the claim that imprisoning pregnant women and new mothers will somehow promote public health. The commentary describes the unhealthy and dangerous prison conditions that all too many pregnant women face in this country.

One response to the commentary was from a lawyer in New Mexico. This lawyer had not heard of the arrests and was doubtful that such cases in fact exist. Unfortunately, they do. The good news though is that when these arrests are vigorously challenged winning is possible!

August 10, 2006

A Pro-Choice Victory, Congratulations Barbara Stratton!

Through a variety of mechanisms, women who want to have a vaginal birth after a previous cesarean section ("VBAC") are finding that this option is foreclosed, and their ability to exercise their right to informed medical decision-making limited or denied altogether. Some women have effectively or literally been forced to have unnecessary surgery. In one case police officers actually entered the home of a woman in labor, took her into custody, forced her to return to a hospital, and made her undergo a cesarean section against her will and without medical indication. As a USA Today story on VBACs reported, other women have been forced to travel long distances from their family and doctor in order to attempt vaginal birth at a facility that supports them. And still others have been left with home birth, often without support from a health care professional, as their only way of avoiding a c-section that they in fact did not want or need.

July 21, 2006

What are President Bush's Principles on the Sanctity of Human Life?

Yesterday, President Bush, exercising his first veto, rejected the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act that many in Congress and the medical community believe will lead to many potentially life-saving medical breakthroughs. According to the New York Times, "Mr. Bush said the bill violated his principles on the sanctity of human life." We understand that there are wide differences of opinion on such issues as abortion, the death penalty, war and even health care. Nevertheless we at NAPW wondered whether these pricinples apply to any form of life other than embryonic and fetal life in light of the following:

July 19, 2006

What Started Out As a Little Blog . . .

just summarizing a few of the new and very disturbing assaults on pregnant women and families turned into a commentary published by TomPaine.com and picked up by Alternet, entitled Blaming Pregnant Women. Thank you to editor Alex Walker, at TomPainecom for making this possible: In a society that values children, it's striking how frequently our public policy falls short of our rhetoric. Too often, the notion of collective responsibility for the nation's children translates into collective demonization of pregnant women. Collective responsibility for our children should mean support for policies that help pregnant women get the care they need to have healthy babies. Instead, states and localities are increasingly blaming individual women, exaggerating the harms from individual behaviors.

July 7, 2006

New Arrests of Pregnant Women

NAPW is tracking every case involving the arrests of pregnant women nationwide, and according to news reports, two new arrests have been made in Alabama of women who gave birth to infants who allegedly tested positive for drugs. Telisha Patterson and Haley Mays were recently arrested and charged with torture or willful abuse of a child and child endangerment for giving birth in spite of a drug problem. Alabama has no law permitting such arrests and a court opinion from 1995 says that this very law may not be used as a mechanism for policing pregnancy. Yet here they are, two more arrests.

Part of the reason of why we keep seeing these new cases is how they are covered by the media. For example, one news report from WSB-TV quotes a cashier as a reliable authority that Ms. Patterson was taking drugs. That same story also relies on a sheriff as its medical authority, quoting him as saying that the baby “has the symptoms, feelings, as an addict, even though its small.” If you were sick, would you rely on a police officer or service station cashier for medical diagnosis and advice? It would be far more appropriate to rely on any of the more than ninety scientific experts who have submitted an open letter calling on the media to refrain from using the term “addicted baby” because medical evidence does not support the term and that babies, by definition, cannot be "addicted" to anything. According to the experts, addiction refers to compulsive behavior that continues in spite of adverse consequences. These same experts also state that although research on the impact of methamphetamine exposure is still in the early stages, over 20 years of research on the related drug, cocaine, has not identified any recognizable condition, syndrome or disorder resulting from prenatal exposure to the drug warranting the terms “meth baby” or “crack baby.”

July 3, 2006

Thank you Julie Burkhart

In mid June, authorities found the body of a 14 year old girl, who was nine months pregnant. Police suspect that her abusive boyfriend helped to commit this crime. Unfortunatley Ms. Brooks is just one of far too many girls and women killed as a result of male violence.

On average, more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in this country every day.

Rather than address the pervasive violence against women in Kansas, across the United States and throughout the world, anti-choice activists leapt on this tragic case as an opportunity to advance fetal rights.

Julie Burkhart, is Executive Director of ProKanDo a Kansas based reproductive rights political action committee. Julie began receiving press calls almost immediately. The press inquiries were, however, not about Chelsea Brooks, but rather were all about the rights of the fetus, the fact that it was "viable," and why Kansas did not have an Unborn Victims of Violence Act. Initial press coverage carried such headlines s as: "Girl's death spurs call for new fetal law" and "Family seeks to criminalize killing fetuses."

June 4, 2006

Death to Women. Long Live HIV and HPV.

In our current political world we tend to think of the war on drugs and the war on abortion as very distinct battlegrounds. While it is becoming increasingly clear that the war on abortion is also a war on contraception and sex itself (See Christina Page, How the Pro-choice Movement Saved America) it should be clear that both the war on drugs and the war on abortion are powerful tools for undermining women's health and evidence-based medicine overall.

Feminist writers, thinkers and leaders from Katha Pollitt in the Nation (Virginity or Death, May 30, 2005 issue) to bloggers across the ether-sphere are decrying Bush administration officials in the FDA who are opposing a new vaccine that eradicates the human pampilloma virus (HPV).

May 19, 2006

Spiking Methadone With Oral Contraceptives, the Latest in the War on Reproductive Rights

It is a refreshing change to see how legislators across the Atlantic are so forthcoming about their intentions, as compared to our own sly devils. In the United Kingdom, Duncan McNeil, a Scottish Parliament Minister, wants to add oral contraceptives into methadone in order to punish opiate addicted women who are taking steps to end drug dependency and lead healthier lives. He offers this Faustian deal: if you want methadone, which is a medically approved and prescribed TREATMENT for opiate addiction, then you must give up your right to procreate. Whether you have to read between the lines or just read between the quotes, advocates on both sides of the Atlantic are saying the same thing: If you are poor, a person of color, and use certain drugs, you are a bad person and the more of these characteristics you have, the more undeserving you are to be a mom.

May 11, 2006

In Memoriam—Lawrence Lader & Gloria C. Knighton

Yesterday’s New York Times carried a lengthy obituary for a key reproductive rights thinker and leader, Lawrence Lader. Through his early journalism and then activism, he was one of the first people in the 1960’s to openly expose and challenge US laws criminalizing abortion. It is safe to say that his research, writing, and help in founding the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL) were key factors in igniting an American movement for reproductive rights. I did not know Larry well, but I admired him greatly. I particularly appreciated him because he was one of the few people to document the truly radical, grassroots activism of other women and men of the early reproductive rights movement. Through him, I learned about such people as Patricia Maginnes, the founder of the nation’s first abortion rights organization, and a woman who actively sought to be arrested as a way to challenge California laws restricting the distribution of information about abortion, contraception, and venereal disease.

Larry stayed active all of his long life and I even had the privilege of once helping to represent him and another organization that he founded, ARM (Abortion Rights Mobilization) in their efforts to make RU486 available to women in the United States.

In addition to Larry, America’s reproductive rights movement lost another key activist this year – though one far less recognized.

April 15, 2006

My Trip to South Dakota By Lynn Paltrow

While some national groups are fundraising and announcing plans to go into South Dakota, local grass roots and state based activists are already hard at work, organizing, collecting signatures, building new alliances, and defining the core issues for themselves. I learned this and much more on my recent trip to South Dakota.

As you probably know by now, in March, South Dakota passed a law banning virtually all abortions. Local activists responded by starting a referendum drive. If they collect 16,738 signatures from registered voters, the statute will have to be submitted to the people of the state for a direct vote on November 6, 2006.

I learned that for the local activists collecting signatures, the work they are doing has much more to do with preserving democratic and family values than it does with preserving the right to choose to have an abortion. They understand that the abortion issue is being used to distract attention from core economic and family issues that cross race, religious, and party lines– including the need for a living wage and the fact that so many South Dakota families lack health care coverage.

March 27, 2006

C-Sections, Forced, Coerced, or On Demand?

The World Health Organization considers acceptable levels for cesarean rates as not less than 5% and not more than 15% of all deliveries. Yet approximately 28% of all US births are by cesarean delivery, accounting for approximately one million cesareans a year. Given these facts, it should not come as a surprise that organizations concerned about unnecessary and potentially risky c-sections, including NAPW, will be closely watching this week when the National Institutes of Health state-of-the-science holds its conference on ‘cesarean delivery by maternal request.’ http://www.consensus.nih.gov

The American College of Nurse Midwives. Childbirth Connection, the American Association of Birth Centers, Citizens for Midwifery, the Coalition for Improving Maternity Services, the International Cesarean Awareness Network, and Lamaze International are among the organizations watching closely. These groups support the “REDUCE” campaign . . .

March 21, 2006

Welcome to NAPW's new web site and blog!

Although it is still a work in progress, we are proud to launch a new more beautiful and user-friendly NAPW site. Thanks to John Emerson, Wen-Hua Yang, Wyndi Anderson, and Deb Harper for all of their help.

While we celebrate our new site, we also launch our blog with this question: Have Alaska legislators lost their minds?